KT's recent post about his waste management company woes had me thinking about similar experiences. A few years back, I became nearly apoplectic after a series of annoyances with Bell Canada and their (at the time) terrible, terrible website. I wrote up a therapeutic strongly worded letter, but was hugely dissapointed when they quickly addressed most of my concerns before I could actually *mail* it. Rather than letting it go to waste, I have dug around my older files and unearthed it for your reading pleasure (or not).

Any of you have strongly worded letters you'd like to share?

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To Whom It May Concern:

I have been a customer of Bell Canada for nearly four years. In an attempt to conserve paper and simplify my records, I switched some time ago to the Bell eBill. As a staunch defender of the environmental health of our planet, I do not care to use paper if any real alternatives exist. I am sending this letter by traditional mail to emphasise and attempt to communicate the seriousness of my concerns.

Since switching to the eBill service, I have attempted to deal with your website on a monthly basis. This monthly ritual has become something of a chore for me, as I find that your website is designed in such a way as to prevent me, as much as possible, from finding out how much money I need to pay, and for what I am paying. One would think -- nay, expect -- that a corporation such as yours would welcome payment of bills, and would simplify the process as much as possible, in the interests of profit, customer relations, and common decency.

Due to issues with your website, I was not able to download my bill last month, and thus find myself faced with a late payment charge on my current bill -- which I can view online, but not download for my records. Today, as I attempted to download bills from past months, I found myself staring at an animated progress bar and a note suggesting that I wait patiently until my download had completed. This would be quite acceptable, except that something neglected to tell my computer to download any files.

I am particularly concerned about your website since I use web browsers that are entirely compliant with current web standards. I can only imagine the pain that some of your less technologically endowed customers must experience every month as their older browsers attempt to come to terms with a website that shirks nearly every principle of good, efficient, and ultimately usable web design.

Frankly, madam or sir, my frustration at your website has grown to the point that I would not think twice about switching to another phone company, if a reasonable alternative existed. As such a company does not exist, I will continue to prostrate myself in front of the altar of your fixed-line telecommunications monopoly. I hope that you enjoy my continued business, because I most certainly will not.

I don't have the exact text of the letter, since it's on a hard drive that crashed, but here's the story: Several years ago I received a mailing containing a survey to be filled out from some organization that Jerry Falwell was sponsoring (don't know how I got on the mailing list). I read it over, just to see what they were asking, and it was just one slanted and venomous question after another - complete with the disasterous outcomes "inevitable" if you were to choose the answer they didn't want you to choose. It came with a no-postage needed return envelope, which sparked an idea.

I typed a letter to him, told him that I was a Christian (the truth), and said that while I appreciated his desire to live in a society where he feels comfortable, and while he was certainly entitled by the Constitution to work to efect social change, I found it rather hypocritical that he would resort to the dishonest characterizations of others that he was using. I closed by asking him to remove my name from his mailing list, and to please stop using the name of the Lord in vain. I put it in the envelope instead of the survey, and off it went.

At least he did one of the things I asked him to.

note to Stacey: feel free to delete this post if it would be grounds to move the thread to P&RII. I'm really not looking to re-start flame wars, but since gbcb asked...

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Quote:

Originally Posted by USAZorro

I don't have the exact text of the letter, since it's on a hard drive that crashed, but here's the story: Several years ago I received a mailing containing a survey to be filled out from some organization that Jerry Falwell was sponsoring (don't know how I got on the mailing list). I read it over, just to see what they were asking, and it was just one slanted and venomous question after another - complete with the disasterous outcomes "inevitable" if you were to choose the answer they didn't want you to choose. It came with a no-postage needed return envelope, which sparked an idea.

I typed a letter to him, told him that I was a Christian (the truth), and said that while I appreciated his desire to live in a society where he feels comfortable, and while he was certainly entitled by the Constitution to work to efect social change, I found it rather hypocritical that he would resort to the dishonest characterizations of others that he was using. I closed by asking him to remove my name from his mailing list, and to please stop using the name of the Lord in vain.

At least he did one of the things I asked him to.

note to Stacey: feel free to delete this post if it would be grounds to move the thread to P&RII. I'm really not looking to re-start flame wars, but since gbcb asked...

Personally, I don't see how this would start a flame war...it seems pretty reasonable to me as far as tone and type of response. All you really did was ask to be removed from a mailing list and there's nothing wrong with that!

__________________. “He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”- Fredrick Nietzsche

"We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals." - Immanuel Kant

Personally, I don't see how this would start a flame war...it seems pretty reasonable to me as far as tone and type of response. All you really did was ask to be removed from a mailing list and there's nothing wrong with that!

OK - here's one for you. Don't have the exact text handy, but I can summarize. When I got off active duty a few years ago (before coming back in), I received a final check that included pays and leave I was selling back. I initially questioned the calculations because they didn't look right, but they were close enough for me; within $100. About 2 months later, I get a very terse letter from DFAS - the Defense Finance and Accounting Service - saying I was overpaid by some $650 and that I had 30 days from the date of the letter (now down to 5 days) to repay or they would start charging me interest (12% per year). I could call such and such a number to set up an installment plan if I wanted to, with that interest, of course.

So, back I go to my original notes and dig deeper. In the end, it turned out that I was pretty close about the $100, and they owed me $92. I took their letter, reversed the "from" and the "to" parts and sent of off to them with all my documentation and calculations.

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You call that strongly worded?
It ain't abusive enough unless it tops two pages.
I had to yell at the TV licensing people here. Welcome to the UK and all that. I even managed to get 'you devious perverts' into it.....

I don't have the exact text of the letter, since it's on a hard drive that crashed, but here's the story: Several years ago I received a mailing containing a survey to be filled out from some organization that Jerry Falwell was sponsoring (don't know how I got on the mailing list). I read it over, just to see what they were asking, and it was just one slanted and venomous question after another - complete with the disasterous outcomes "inevitable" if you were to choose the answer they didn't want you to choose. It came with a no-postage needed return envelope, which sparked an idea.

I typed a letter to him, told him that I was a Christian (the truth), and said that while I appreciated his desire to live in a society where he feels comfortable, and while he was certainly entitled by the Constitution to work to efect social change, I found it rather hypocritical that he would resort to the dishonest characterizations of others that he was using. I closed by asking him to remove my name from his mailing list, and to please stop using the name of the Lord in vain. I put it in the envelope instead of the survey, and off it went.

At least he did one of the things I asked him to.

note to Stacey: feel free to delete this post if it would be grounds to move the thread to P&RII. I'm really not looking to re-start flame wars, but since gbcb asked...

Instead of continued business, I'd remind them that VOIPis now cheaper and with cable access you aren't even dependent on them for internet access OR phone service!

That would be a good way to go, but at the time it was written VOIP wasn't as viable an option as it is now. The problem with that in Canada is that I'd just be switching from a telecom monopoly to a cable monopoly!

You call that strongly worded?
It ain't abusive enough unless it tops two pages.
I had to yell at the TV licensing people here. Welcome to the UK and all that. I even managed to get 'you devious perverts' into it.....

It could have been more strongly worded, but it was fun to write anyway. And, while the chances would still be slim, I figured this would be more likely to lead to a productive response than something calling them devious perverts